[ GRAVEYARD ]

[sheriffexe]

GRAVEYARD

So, you're dead. Shame, that. But on the other hand, it's actually kind of nice. When you "wake" in some odd version of it, you'll find yourself lying on a rather plush bed. It's cozy and warm and just soft enough to tempt anyone back into sleep. The room is equally nice, if small, and when you turn and open the curtains to look out the window, you will see... wait, is that the town? It is, actually. The town is laid out quite simply across the window and no matter how many times you may bang or wave through the window, no one seems to notice you. If you're smart enough to give up the venture and leave the small bedroom, you will notice that, of course, you are on the train. The train that, is actually pretty fancy. Moving through it, past the sleeping cabins and through to the main carts, you will find a dining car with fine dishware and meals of all kinds made at a push of a button or a request given to the air. They'll appear, freshly made and ready to eat at the table of your choice with any drink you could want. There truly doesn't seem to be any limits when it comes to the luxury of the meal. There is also a bathhouse car with private bathrooms and saunas to fit up to four. Even one rather large room containing a small pool/hot tub of sorts is available for just about anyone to take a dip. It's kind of outlandish, honestly. Then the lounge car, with its library and plush armchairs and couches. A pool table, a darts board, even a small area dedicated to painting. There's a bar too, fully stocked and ready for anyone who needs a drink. All it would require is a request from the bartender who... looks surprisingly familiar? The Sheriff is there, much cleaner cut than his counterpart outside of the train. He looks up mildly at any arrivals, giving them a nod of greeting before going back to organizing bottles or setting cigars out for a smoke. He doesn't seem to be surprised at all by anyone who appears. Just... ready to serve them, whatever they may wish. It all sort of seems okay for a moment, until you realize you're just here to wait for the game to end. Awkward.

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[robitussin]

[She doesn't leave the bed she wakes up in for hours.

Laying there, she thinks and she forces herself to breathe and she lets herself cry for a while. Longer than she would like to admit, even, but she does stop eventually. Her eyes are red and puffy when she finally begins to look around the rest of the train, but more than that, she just seems exhausted. The gaze with which she scans all the fixtures of the train is dull and apathetic, if she sees anyone, she freezes in place instead of issuing a greeting, as though she wants anything but to speak to them. After all, that's not far from the truth.

If nobody catches her as she first emerges from the bed, she can be found in the dining area. She's making it a point not to watch the trial, and instead she has... cake. A lot of cake. So much cake that is very quickly disappearing.

This is absolutely the best way to deal with shooting her former father figure to death and then being eaten by his boyfriend. As one does.]

[ceded]

[ Xion will find her.

Xion watches the trial, and didn't even know how to cope with the horror she felt, and now, after everything, will find her.

It's in one of the hallways, because honestly, Xion goes looking. She wonders if Natalie will turn up after Will confessed at the trial, and it scares and worries her that she doesn't find Natalie right away.

Then again, she too stayed in her room to cry after she woke up.

So she doesn't give up. She tries again, and again, until eventually, Natalie is there.

Natalie might freeze, but Xion won't. Instead she goes to her without a word and tugs her best friend into her arms, trying not to cry. ]

[robitussin]

[She sees the younger girl coming, and some overwhelming and fierce emotion swells up in her chest. Rage at whoever did this to her. Sorrow that both of them are there. Bitterness that it came to this. If it were literally anyone else, she would hesitate or back away, issue some form of protest when they were still a sizable distance apart from her.

But this is Xion, and she finds that she can't move.

Letting herself be pulled in, she pauses for a long moment to breath in and out. This is convenient, in a way, because it takes her that long to think of anything to say. When she does speak, it comes with heat, an anger drawn out from deep within her.]

Who did this to you?

[She will see them pay.]

[ceded]

Natalie...

[ She almost wants to laugh. Of course that's the first thing she'd ask. Instead of replying, Xion just buries her face in Natalie's shoulder and hugs her tighter, not sure if she wants to laugh or cry or throw up or what. ]

I ... the way I died was -- I didn't suffer. I'm okay. [ ... ] I just ...

If I could kill the two of them, { she murmurs, low, charged with threat, and she doesn't have to clarify who she means, probably, ] I'd really ... have to try, not to take that chance.

[robitussin]

It... That isn't what matters.

[It's important, and she knows that. The thought of Xion being killed is nauseating, infuriating, but the blow is lessened with the knowledge that she didn't suffer. Her insides still feel lit with coals, burning hot and bright, but she can put that aside to focus on the girl in front of her.

Reaching forward, she smooths down her hair, slow and comforting.]

It doesn't matter. They're going to be here, too.

[ceded]

... isn't it?

[ At this point in the game, the person who killed her would have been someone that, up until that point, they all trusted. No matter what the revelation of the name would be horrible and painful, and Xion isn't sure she wants to address it right now and make Natalie feel worse than she must already. ]

I know. [ The set of her shoulders is ... stiff. ] Natalie, please ... try and stay away from them. [ even though hannibal already found her hAHA GOD!! ] I've never felt so angry at anyone, not ever, but it isn't worth it. We'll get out of here and we'll never have to see them again.

[robitussin]

Okay.

[and then she got mad at hannibal two seconds later but whatever

Regardless, she doesn't want to talk about them. Thinking about what happened to her is the last thing that she wants. She imagines that must be the same for Xion, too, so she lets the subject go.

However, that leaves an expanse before her. Where do they go from here? What does she say?]

...I'm sorry.

[sating]

[ The cake is probably long gone by the time Hannibal emerges from his own room. He had been watching the proceedings with interest, after all. He watched every development, and at the same time, every bite that Will took. Both enraptured him like little else had, and so Natalie was barely a thought at the time. She was only meat. He was far more interested in Will.

But alas, eventually, his entertainment stops. Will is chosen and caught, and so now he can only wait for tomorrow. It's during that time that Hannibal finds himself bored, and he ends up going to look for Natalie. He comes to the dining car and sees her, and a barely there smile comes to his face.

He stops a short distance away, then nods to her. ]

Hello, Natalie.

[ It's as familiar as ever, delivered in exactly the same tone that Hannibal always had. It's like nothing has changed at all for him, from the way he looks at her with mild curiosity to the way his hands are folded in front of himself. He seems perfectly at ease with being here and with why he's here at all. ]

[robitussin]

[For a moment, the slight raise of her head and the soft intake of breath is the only indication that she's heard him at all. She doesn't look towards him and she automatically stops her expression from shifting too far. There is a great hollowness inside her, and while she doesn't know if it was caused by the things he said or the things she did, it persists nonetheless.

If she were being honest with herself, she knew that this moment would come from the second she chose him as a target. Whether or not that had prepared her for it is a more difficult question to answer. In truth, she realizes that she hasn't thought about it at all, neither what to expect nor what to say. So, for a long moment, she simply stares straight ahead without answering him.

Then her shoulders draw together and she feels her hands start to tremble. Hannibal is like the monster in the closet or under her bed, she thinks. Perhaps it was foolish to imagine he would just disappear, leaving her alone. When she speaks, her voice is thick and frail at once.]

Please...

[Even if he asked, she wouldn't be aware what it is she's asking for. Her mouth closes for a short moment before parting again to say something else.]

Why are you here?

[Not on the train, because she's aware that both of them know that answer all too well. Instead - why is he speaking to her? Why is he not avoiding her, as she wishes to avoid him?]

[sating]

[ He takes a few steps closer when she says that "please," a gesture that's far more threatening than it would be from anyone else. Yet Hannibal has no ill intent behind it. Intimidation, perhaps, or he knows that's the natural consequence of his approach. But he bears no ill will towards Natalie. It was her right to kill him.

Just as it was Will's right to kill her.

He speaks calmly, though again, he stops before approaching too close. The distance is only closed to where it would be friendlier, though it's certainly the last thing she must want. ]

I wrote you a letter.

[ His head tilts very slightly, curious, and the corners of his eyes wrinkle in interest. ]

Did you have a chance to read it?

[robitussin]

[He comes closer, and while she hates herself for this moment of weakness as soon as it's come to pass, she flinches. Her arm draws around herself as she makes herself smaller, eyes widening in fear as she looks down at the ground with an intense focus. Looking at him is not an option.

She is terrified of him and all he has come to represent for her.

Despite the fact that she can find herself trembling, somehow she nods slowly. Something haunted and bitter awakens in her as she traces the words in her mind one more time. Those lines have been circling back and forth within her ever since she read them, and recalling them again gives her the courage to look him in the face now.

Much like her trembling hands, her voice shakes, but now it comes from anger as well as fear.]

You don't know me, [she begins, bitter and heated,] and I don't have blood on my hands, because you aren't human. You're a monster.

[sating]

[ Hannibal watches her reactions, but he doesn't delight in them. There's fear, becayse if course there's fear. There is always fear when someone truly begins to know Hannibal, sees him for what he truly is. He's something that most people cannot understand, and it's always been both a point of intense pride and of loneliness for him. The people that had psychoanalyzed him before always drew the conclusion that this was the cause of what he was. He sought understanding, and he couldn't deny that.

However, that did not make him. He always was. Just, he thinks, as Natalie always had the capacity to kill him in her.

So it's with her words she reacts. She calls him inhuman, a monster, and Hannibal smiles. There may be the sense that this is the first time she's truly seen him smile. ]

Yet does a monster not have blood running through its veins? You should know. You saw it. Bled it from me, because unfortunately, your aim could have been better.

[ The corners of his eyes lift up into a bit more of a smile. ]

You know, there are quite a few people that would be jealous of what you have accomplished here, Natalie. You've managed quite a feat.

[robitussin]

Shut up.

[She should have known it was a poor decision not to simply walk away when he came to speak with her, she thinks. With only one remaining arm, putting her hands over her ears is impossible. Even so, the way he smiles, the calm and even pleased tone of his words feels like it's sinking into her skin. Reaching down, the fingers of her remaining hand dig into the fabric of her trousers in a desperate attempt to ground herself.

It is only now that she realizes this is what he does. He has been doing this from the first moment they spoke. Every time she thought of him in such high esteem or spoke words indicating respect to him, she thinks, it must have been entertaining to him. That knowledge curls in the pit of her stomach, and it sickens her.

His words call to mind the still too vivid memory of the blood pooling around his broken body, the scent of gunpowder and the taste of fear. Her expression twists in agony despite her best efforts.]

No. It wasn't hard. You were clumsy, it was easy to figure you out. Shut up.

[insincerely]

[... Honestly, while he and Natalie weren't exactly friends, he's still not happy to see her here, for a variety of reasons.

But he won't make this emotional—that'd be weird for starters, and he's too tired to pretend.]

Hey. [...] Want to know the one major thing we didn't know while alive that you really should know now, or would you rather wait until later?

[The missing piece that they didn't even know they were lacking.]

[robitussin]

[She looks up at him, but the fact that he's offering information off the bat makes it easier. It's always been like that between them, she thinks, even if she has to swallow the compulsive need to apologize for whatever happened to him.

A nod is all he gets. Her voice can't be trusted at the moment, but she wants to know.]

[insincerely]

[...]

It turns out that to go back home, you have to be on this train. And... to be on this train, you have to die.

... Doesn't matter even if we get our nice little "nobody wants to kill" end. Everyone has to die, one way or another.

[robitussin]

[She stares at him for a long moment, blank and disbelieving, before realization slowly starts to set in. There is no reason for him to lie about this. He is telling her the truth.

With a completely undignified scream of anger, she slams her foot into the compartment wall, kicking it as hard as she can muster. Her anger isn't soothed, and her foot aches immediately, but she doesn't find it in herself to care.

It was all for nothing.]

Fuck!

[insincerely]

[Watching Natalie's reaction, he smiles bitterly.]

... My thoughts exactly.

[All of those meetings, all of their planning...

Nothing any of them did mattered at all.]

For better or for worse, Barnham is the only one who knows. Seems like he's going on a killing spree to end this game. [...] Better pray that Percy or Noctis talks to him first.

[alcobrawlic]

[ Hi, Natalie. There's a foaming mug being placed on the table closest to her, because while Sara doesn't really condone underage drinking--

Well. Sometimes you get eaten by someone, and it's better to focus on something else. Sara herself won't say anything just yet. ]

[robitussin]

[As she looks from the mug to Sara, there are a few confused blinks, before... Well, the expression she makes isn't happy, but it might be a shade less miserable. It's not the drink as much as the surprise of it.]

Full one this time, huh? Lucky me.

[All the same, those last words are tinged with bitterness.]

[alcobrawlic]

Some situations call for a full mug. I don't think you and I are very huggy people, and you look like you'll jump about ten feet up if I so much as tap you, so...

[ She's improvising. ]

[robitussin]

[A soft huff. She means it to be amused, but it comes out flat.]

You'll have to forgive me if I'm a little high strung right now.

[She does take a sip, though.]

Thanks.

[alcobrawlic]

[ Her usual handflap-- ]

If you weren't, I'd be a little worried. Want me to leave you alone?

[cherrypuncher]

[There is no good way to address what just happened. Zero. None at all. So when Yuna passes by the dining area and sees Natalie there, she decides that she just—won't. She can't imagine Natalie wanting her to. When she approaches, though, it's with all her usual smiley cheer, but she's reined in her exuberance, so she's all gentle grins and warmth.]

Hey, Natalie! [She skips over, but doesn't sit down; she's testing the edges of Natalie's comfort zone, trying to figure out if there's room for her there.] That cake looks so good! What kind is it?

[robitussin]

[As she looks over at Yuna, it's like it comes in with a flash, the memory of her throat torn out, laying under the porch surrounded by blood. Still, if her expression tightens for a moment, it's gone the next instant. She forces a smile for the younger girl, gesturing for her to sit.]

It's chocolate.

[She pauses, like she isn't certain what else to say, but... Maybe if they pretend everything is normal, it'll be almost like it really is for a few minutes.]